No Going Back!!!

Thank you to everyone who has shown an interest in how I approach this repair. The owner has given me kind permission to share the photos with you.

Having a “letterbox” repair with endgrain against endgrain is not structurally sound, nor easy to hide. Any wood that needs replacing across the grain of a front inside the edges is best done with a patch, like a soundpost patch.

Fitting a patch through a hole is possible but very difficult when it comes to aligning the grain. My preferred method is to match shavings to the original, press them into the area and fit a patch afterwards.

Photo 2 & 3: Protecting the cast with paper and gouging a concave curve down to the edge of the hole where the wood feathers out. The result is a ragged edge which is much easier to hide later.

Photo 4: I kept the larger shavings from along the top when carving down towards the hole.

Photo 5: The lower part of the hole reaches over the centre joint where the grain is much finer.

Photo 6: The original shaving can be re-used to cover that area up to the centre joint. It had to be thinned down a bit.

Photo 7: The shaving gets positioned with tape to make sure the grainlines match on the outside.

Photo 8: The shaving gets pressed and glued on with some hard foam material and a piece of wood on top.

Photo 9 & 10: The glued shaving viewed from the inside and the outside, now covering the area up to the centre joint.